M.I.T.A. – Free Materials

The materials found on this page are mainly exercises and applications based on devices and tools that are being taught inside the membership and the composition course. We hope that these free M.I.T.A. supplements boost your skills, open new musical doors and stimulate your creativity. If you want to learn more about the power and beauty of interval theory, please join the academy right now!

1) Piano Exercises on Polytonality

M.I.T.A. knowledge does not only help you with composing. If you are a piano player, please have a look at our free piano exercises. They show some interesting ways how to incorporate polytonality into your playing or even arranging.

2) “The Escape” using M3

M.I.T.A. uses several matrices that suggest combinations of intervals, horizontally and vertically. M3 is an abbreviation for Matrix 3 and covers all interval combinations that contain a minor third in it. There are as many ways how to use M3 in your writing as there are composers out there but you have to be specific and stick to your base of thinking to maintain consistency in your composition.

Here you can listen to the piano sketch of “The Escape” as it shows up in the PDF. Listen to the sketch first in order to get an idea how we started this composition.

And now, here is the development of “The Escape”. You can even listen to the orchestral version while following the sketch in the PDF and you will see that the sketch already pretty much contains all information. This is a great example of the process that is being taught at M.I.T.A.: Gathering material, sketching and developing ideas.

3) Storytelling using “1+1”

This is an excerpt from Lesson 37 of the composition course. “1+1” is a description of a musical cluster in chromatic steps, just like the notes ‘C’, ‘Db’ and, ‘D’. Find out how to use this cluster in musical storytelling as shown in the video! We hope you enjoy!

First, have a listen to the sketch. You find the sketch in the PDF on pages 3 to 5. We highly recommend you listen to this while looking at the PDF.

Next, here is the orchestral development of “They are not Dead”. Again, please follow the score while listening. As you’ll see, the development is very close to the sketch. In case you are lost and overwhelmed with the orchestral score, simply refer to the sketch while listening! We hope you enjoy!